Something very scandalous has transpired on Hulbert Avenue. Rumor has it that Michael Bick, husband of Heidi Bick and the father of four, had an affair with their next-door neighbor Lyric Layton, and Lyric is now pregnant. This story is so salacious that Blond Sharon will be able to dine out on it all summer long. Apparently, Heidi Bick found Lyric’s eye shadow in her makeup drawer, Lyric’s René Caovilla stilettos in her closet, and Lyric’s positive pregnancy test inside the Jennifer Weiner novel Good in Bed. （Is there symbolism in this choice of book? There must be!） Heidi invited the Laytons over for dinner on the deck, faking normality, but as soon as the first cocktail was poured, she confronted Michael and Lyric. It was a surprise attack so they couldn’t confer and get their stories straight. Whoa, did this cause an uproar—mostly from Ari Layton, who had been mentally keeping track of how many times Michael checked out his wife these past few years. Ari had always suspected a flirtation between his wife and Michael but he was enraged to find out it was something far more. Ari had been so happy about Lyric’s pregnancy （he was hoping for a little girl after three boys）， but what if it turned out it wasn’t his baby? Ari stood up, fists at the ready.
Both Michael and Lyric vehemently denied the accusation. They had never been together in any capacity, nor would they ever. Lyric was appalled that Heidi thought so little of her. She wasn’t sure what her eye shadow, shoes, and pregnancy test were doing in the Bicks’ house, but for the record, if she were having an affair with Michael, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave those things behind!
Here, we had to admit, she had a point.
Michael claimed he was being set up. It was probably someone from his office who had found out he and Rafe were starting their own company. They’d sent a spy into the house. The guy who came to fix the internet, perhaps?
Ari said, “But how would anyone from your company get into our house? How would he know to take the eye shadow, shoes, and pregnancy test, which he must have found in our trash?”
Right, we thought. It made no sense.
Lyric was, by all accounts, calm but emphatic. She was happy to have the paternity of the baby tested as soon as that was an option. Michael, however, kept spewing conspiracy theories and generally acting like a man with a guilty conscience.
This made us wonder.
There has also been a shake-up at the Deck, one so disruptive that the restaurant announces a temporary emergency closing on Sunday, July 17. The Deck hasn’t closed on a summer Sunday in fifteen years of operation. What is going on?
Romeo down at the Steamship Authority reports that he saw Christina Cross driving her bright orange Jeep onto the ferry, her belongings packed to within inches of the roof. It’s Romeo’s job to regulate that kind of thing—drivers are supposed to have a foot of visual clearance out the back window—but when Romeo approaches the car, he sees Christina is sobbing, so he waves her on. He has been doing this job for decades and knows a heartbroken woman leaving the island for good when he sees one.
Christina has left the Deck. Is that why they closed? Yes and no. Christina could easily be replaced by Peyton as hostess and Goose as sommelier. But Goose, who is JJ’s closest confidant, tells his sister Janice, the dental hygienist, that JJ closed the Deck so that he could take a “personal day”—which involved a case of Cisco beer, a couple of three-way sandwiches from Yezzi’s food truck, and a ride with Goose out to Great Point to fish. He told Goose that Christina had left, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem, JJ said, was that he had gotten mixed up with Christina in the first place.
“I had the best woman I could have asked for,” JJ said. “Lizbet was my friend, my confidante, someone I knew I could spend the rest of my life with. And I blew it.”
“You blew it,” Goose agreed.
17. Hot-Girl Summer
Business at the Hotel Nantucket has picked up considerably! Grace notes this with delight, and although it feels immodest to say, she knows it’s all thanks to her. By the end of July, every room at the hotel is booked. Word has gotten out that the hotel is haunted by the ghost of Grace Hadley and everyone wants to experience the phenomenon. This is Grace’s fifteen minutes of fame, and she can’t afford to squander it. She’s very busy in the nighttime hours making benign room visits. She knocks on walls, flickers the lights, messes with the electric shades （this is so much fun）， and plays the guests’ favorite songs out of nowhere.
These shenanigans delight the guests, but Grace begins to worry that cheap stunts will dilute her brand. Can she put her powers to better use? Yes! For example, seventeen-year-old Juliana Plumb wants to come out to her parents. They’re staying in suite 314 and they’ve just had a lovely dinner at the Languedoc Bistro. As they were walking down the hallway toward their suite, Mr. Plumb teased Juliana about the cute busboy who had been flirting with her at dinner. Juliana looked uncomfortable, and Grace knows exactly why.